Music Technology

There are a ton of things out there for use in a music classroom.  Software that can do the old drill and practice (which actually hardly ever gets done in a music classroom) with just note reading and listening exercises.  That stuff is nice because of the immediate feedback a student receives.  The other stuff that is a lot more interesting is the composition software.  Students can experiment with writing music and hear what it is supposed to sound like.  There are a couple of ways they can do that, one example is writing out the notation first and then seeing what it sounds like, the other way is by creating the sounds...like with garage band.  That's a lot more accessible to people without any musical training.  I actually have a student who composed a piece for drumline and submitted to the Michigan Student Composers Competition and it was selected to open the Honors Composition Concert this Saturday at the Michigan Music Conference in Grand Rapids.  

The other stuff out there that helps as a teacher is marching band drill software.  The "old" way as taught by the great Jack Saunders was to put out a sheet a paper and start plotting dots on it, then turn a light on under the paper put a new sheet on top of the old and hope that you're not trying to have to kids move too far in a short amount of time.  That's the way I was taught...I'm not even that old, I can proudly (and honestly) say I'm still in my 20's.  Now you can manipulate everything on the computer screen.  The great part when it comes to teaching students is that they can view the drill (with music) online.  They also make a "march pad", kind of like dance, dance, revolution where students can actually step into their spots in the drill and practice it.  It gives them a score and they can even compete against their friends with who knows there part better.

The big thing I've been thinking about in education lately is how it will affect music and the "electives". Right now I think a good approach to the whole thing is trimesters as long as band is considered a full year course. A lot of other band directors are against it and I'm not sure, they never really give any reason, they just complain.